While I’m only looking at this from the outside, all I can say is “Ouch!”. Adobe is laying off 600 employees worldwide. While I’ve seen a few names mentioned, I’ve no idea if any of the Lightroom team were lost. Whether or not, there will be a few extra people home this Christmas with no jobs. Never a good time. Still some have mentioned a reasonable severance package, so hopefully it’s not all bad news.
6 thoughts on “Adobe Ouch”
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No worries David.
They’re not out to deliberately hamper any camera maker.
For instance the new Lumix cameras need a liner DNG making them larger, but as a compromise to adding lens corrections into the DNG. Future versions will fix this. Anything else on lens correction in DNG is just speculation, but it’s interesting.
There are some proprietary things they can’t do because of patents, like the range expansion techniques in Nikon or Fuji.
Other raw convertors also use a different exposure baseline. E.g. Phase One use a higher one that Adobe, so a conversison of Phase One files in ACR would look darker. Bumping the exposure will correct this with no ill, because the original convertor is doing this in the background as it is.
Hi Sean
Thanks for your reply and some good points.
On PSE it has grown into a great programe with the question being asked why buy CS3/4 etc.
Well I think PS as we know it will become more CS and less PS with PSE and LR fulfilling photographers needs. Even Sony have released a Vaio with LR and PSE pre installed.
As for ACR. I did not make the point clear enough. The ACR for the big 2 rivals any other convertor but people who do not use the big 2 find better quality and levels of conversion through other sources and perhaps feel that the work put into ACR is not as thorough for anything other than the big 2.
Sorry if that comes over as a ramble.
By the way thanks for the the grad and web work you put in for LR
David
It’s any consolation Charles, one of the venues I work in will be closing Mondays and Tuesdays. I usually work Monday, Tuesday and Friday there. I am on charge though so I guess the Thursdays might be coming back to me for a while instead.
Welcome to the club. My company laid off 1300 last month, and another 3000 are scheduled for Q1 2009, but most likely will be by the end of January. I don’t have high hopes of surviving the cut.
CD
All versions of Camera Raw have been the same. Each version is tied to a PS release.
You can convert to DNG and and use new cameras with older versions of Camera Raw.
I’m not happy about the price imbalance either, and yes a lot of Europeans have abstained from upgrading because of it, which does affect the bottom line.
Scant regard? Have you looked at the list of compatible cameras recently?
David, no one is forcing anyone to buy or upgrade for that matter, and recently PS Elements has expanded tools significantly to be of use to most photographers. There are options always. (And like I said, not upgrading is one of them).
Let’s talk about Camera Raw on its own. When first introduced, ACR was a $99 addon to PS. It was incorporated into the following version of Photoshop free.
Nearly all programs have an update price on a version increase, along with additional tools, which Camera Raw 5.0 does over 4.6. If it were a standalone program, then it would have an upgrade price, I suspect no less than $50. Subtracting this from the upgrade price, and add in the extra tools and improvements in CS4 and it’s not so bad (again considering the imbalance).
Maybe Adobe should realise that the cavalier attitude they display to customers may be losing the same and thus revenue.
No backwards compatibility of the latest ACR so you have to upgrade to CS4
The imbalance of purchase price between US and the rest of the world, Europe in particular.
Scant regard to RAW conversion beyond the big 2 camera manufacturers.
there are probably more.
PS is great and LR is great but both (particularly PS) come at a price.
David